RAO Section internship available

The Reference, Access, and Outreach Section (RAO) of the Society of American Archivists seeks volunteers for at least one unpaid section internship for 2009-2010. The intent of the intern pilot project is to provide an opportunity for a current graduate student or archivist with less than three years experience in the profession to be actively involved in and observe the activities of a section. The intern's primary responsibilities will be in the area of communications, but may include other section initiatives based on the interests and needs of the intern and section. The intern will serve from the time of selection through the 2010 SAA Annual Meeting (attendance at the 2010 Annual Meeting is not required).

Applicants should have a demonstrated interest in archives (such as work, volunteering, internships, and/or coursework). Also important are attention to detail, good organizational and communication skills, flexibility, and a sense of humor. The intern will be required to submit at least two news or other items to the RAO News blog, which may then be published in the RAO Newsletter and other venues.

Other responsibilities may include:

* Monitor the RAO blog and Facebook group for potential improvements, revisions and/or corrections, posts or comments requiring responses.

* Assist Webmaster as needed, particularly as SAA transitions to Drupal to support its online presence.

* Communicate with Steering Committee members regarding ongoing business, projects, concerns, etc.

* Participate in section projects, working groups, sub-committees, etc. as appropriate. Topics may include: needs identified in the RAO meeting discussion groups; ongoing projects of the section such as National History Day, impact of MPLP upon users and reference archivists, 2.0/social media education for archivists; or other identified priorities of the section.

To apply for the RAO Section internship, submit resume and cover letter detailing your reasons for interest in the internship, including potential topics of interest, to RAO Chair Amy Schindler (acschi@wm.edu) by September 11, 2009.

Call for Content

I am preparing a newsletter for publication around July 1. If you have any announcements or articles you would like to share, please e-mail them to me at raonews@gmail.com by June 15.

Thanks.
Nancy

Newsletter Survey Results

As you know, a task force appointed by the Steering Committee sent out a survey about the newsletter. During the period the survey was open (October 20-27, 2008), we received 36 responses. Thank you for your willingness to tell us about the kinds of communication you want from the section.

Section members want information communicated to them as it becomes available, and your preferences for distribution were blast e-mail, newsletter and blog. We believe that this means you support a desire for information on a regular, timely basis, and still want a newsletter. Therefore, we created this blog that the membership can contribute to by sending the content to the Newsletter Editor (yours truly). Then, when there's enough to put together an actual news letter, I will repackage the blog postings, with some additional content, into a newsletter. I will solicit content for the blog and newsletter at least once a quarter.

The responses indicated that you are most interested in news from repositories, reviews of relevant websites and books, and research project write ups. You also said you would contribute to a newsletter; a majority of the respondents indicated that they would forward their repositories’ press releases or contribute when they “have news to report” or “something significant has occurred.” I am hoping that you are willing to review websites and books and to write up the research project or local initiative you've been working on. Consider this my plea for help.

That's it for now, I'm sure that I'll have more later.